


If Not For These Bad Dreams

by Redrikki



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Clones, Gen, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 03:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11477853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: Fives has dreamed about killing every Jedi he ever met. It turns out, he's not the only one.





	If Not For These Bad Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Written in for [hurt/comfort bingo](http://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/145157.html?thread=945669) challenge "confessions in a desperate situation." Somewhat inspired by a tumblr prompt about Anakin's relationship with the clones.

Like every clone who had trained under her, Fives was a little bit in love with General Shaak Ti and, like every clone who had trained under her, he dreamed of killing her. Sometimes he shot her in the back while she faced a shadow enemy. Other times he and his brothers fired down on her from on high. Once, the night she turned down his transfer and allowed his unit to re-take the test, he shot her in the face while she knelt at his feet. Fives had cried, after, remembering the fear in her violet eyes. The nightmares were a quiet shame he had no idea he shared. 

Fives liked Commander Tano. She was brave, funny, and always treated them like they were real people, but he dreamed about killing her too. The first time it happened, he thought it was a Togruta thing. The younger Jedi didn’t look much like the general, aside from their shared species, but Fives figured there must be something about her that reminded him of whatever he’d hated about Shaak Ti. Maybe he’d hated her for being so hard on them. Or maybe he hated her for not training them hard enough to keep his brothers alive. 

Pretty soon though, Fives started having dreams about other Jedi too. Everyone who met him had wanted to shoot General Krell, but Fives had never had a problem with General Kenobi. He liked General Plo Koon, and didn’t mind General Yoda, but his dream self cut them down without hesitation. In fact, the only Jedi he’d ever met Fives had never dreamed of shooting was General Skywalker.

“There’s just something about him, you know?” Fives said to his brothers once after a night of heavy drinking. He, Jesse, Tup, and Kix were all crowded around the bar at 79’s. They’d just gotten back from another rotten mission, this time on some crummy Outer Rim moon so sparsely populated it had a number instead of a name. Fives couldn’t even have said why they had fought for it, but that was command for you.

Jesse just smirked. “Well, he is pretty dreamy,” he said, giving Fives a nudge that nearly knocked him off his stool.

“Oh, shut up.” Fives shoved him away. Everyone with eyes and half a brain could see the general was hung up on Senator Amidala. General Skywalker was handsome enough, but Fives wasn’t the sort to pine after the unattainable. “’T’s not like that,” he slurred. “General’s not like other Jedi.”

“Damn right!” Tup banged his mug on the bar. “He treats us with respect!” A couple of the civilian patrons glanced over, but he was too drunk to care. “Fightin’ beside us. Never just throws our lives away.” 

Not like Krell, he meant, but it hadn’t just been him. The Jedi Council had seen his high casualty rates, but they didn’t care. As long as he got results, General Krell could kill all the clones he wanted. That was the Council for you. Oh, the lot of them were nice enough to a clones’ face, but, at the end of the day, Fives and his brothers were all just numbers to them. Half the time he didn’t even mind any more, his dreams of shooting _them_.

Now that Tup had brought him up, the ghost of Krell seemed to hang over the bar. “Sometimes I—I have these-these nightmares,” Kix confessed tearfully. It had just about killed the medic, leaving the wounded behind like they’d been forced to do on Umbara. They’d been bred to have superior resistance to stress, but it was no wonder he had nightmares.

“We all have nightmares from that campaign,” Jesse said, sounding a lot more sober than he had just a few minutes before. Sometimes Fives had nightmares where the firing squad actually went through with it. He was willing to bet the entire cost of his production that Jesse did too. 

Tup shook his head. “It’s more than just that. When we hunted Krell, I wanted to—” He took gulp of his drink and started over. “If Dogma hadn’t—” He swallowed hard. “It felt like something in a dream.”

“I dream about killing them,” Fives blurted. His brothers turned to stare at him. There was a look of horror on their faces, but a funny sort of it. It was less like they’d discovered a monster in their midst, and more like they’d turned over a body and found their favorite brother. It was an expected horror, one that made sense, and was intimately familiar. They’d all dreamed it too, Fives realized. They’d been bred to be loyal. They’d been bred and trained and had duty shoved down their throats, and still they all had a killing rage hiding under every yes, sir. Stars, it was like they were all monsters. Or maybe the Jedi were. 

This was the kind of talk that could get a clone killed, the way going through with it had gotten Dogma killed, but Fives couldn’t stop now. He’d held this inside too long. “I’ve dreamed of killing every Jedi I ever met.”

“Yeah,” Tup agreed, looking a little glassy eyed. “Every one of them except General Skywalker.”

**Author's Note:**

> In episode 6.01 "The Unknown," Tup tries to kill every Jedi he sees _except_ Anakin Skywalker. Guess the clones were programed to see him as 'not Jedi" so that Palpatine could ensure the safety of his favorite toy.


End file.
